abandonware games sorted by popularity

If Hamlet had a sequel directed by a DOS programmer, Castle Elsinore would be it. This interactive fiction game drops you right into Shakespearean drama with murder, betrayal, and ...

Prisoner of Ice is a 1995 adventure game inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, combining mystery, horror, and exploration into a chilling story. Players investigate strange even...

By 1994, RPG fans were spoiled with titles like Might and Magic and Ultima. Then along came Disciples of Steel, a brutally complex, turn-based fantasy epic for DOS. It drops you in...

Moraff's Revenge delivers a classic dungeon-crawling role-playing adventure packed with monsters, treasure, exploration, and enough dangerous corridors to make staying home seem in...

Dark Ages Volume III: Dungeons of Doom closes out the trilogy with—you guessed it—more doom, dungeons, and ways to fall off platforms you swear you landed on. The serie...

Vroom is a racing game that takes a fairly simple premise and pushes it toward a convincing sense of speed. Released in 1994 for DOS, it puts you behind the wheel of fast cars and ...

F-15 Strike Eagle is one of those games that practically defined what a combat flight simulator should be in the 1980s. It drops you into the cockpit of the legendary F-15 and tell...

Crazy Cars: Hit the Road is a deliberately old-fashioned arcade racing game that wastes very little time explaining itself. You get a car, a road, and plenty of opportunities to di...

Phantis is a 1987 platform action game that sends players through colorful environments filled with enemies, obstacles, and classic challenges requiring quick reflexes. The game fo...

Film Studio Tycoon Alpha is a management simulation about the glamorous world of filmmaking, except that glamour quickly gives way to budgets, scheduling, production decisions, and...

Pyjamarama is an abandoned action adventure game released in 2004 for Windows; it's a remake of the original Pyjamarama. The original is a classic video game developed by Mikr...

Evasive Action is a space shooter that embraces speed and precision over spectacle. You pilot a small craft through dangerous environments, dodging obstacles and enemies with littl...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

If you’ve ever stared at a Monopoly board and thought, “This needs more spreadsheets,” then Oligopoly is basically your spiritual home. Released in 1987 for DOS, ...

O-Pong is a 1996 DOS game that takes one of the simplest ideas in video game history and gives it another spin. At its heart, it is a variation on Pong, which means two sides, a ba...

Ever wanted to pilot a walking death machine through a series of exploding industrial hellscapes while being shot at from every angle? Welcome to Amok. This 1996 mech-shooter is a ...

NetStorm: Islands at War is a 1997 real-time strategy game with a wonderfully unusual setting: floating islands suspended in the sky, where rival factions wage war using buildings,...

Roadwar Europa is a 1987 DOS strategy game that moves the post-apocalyptic road adventure into a devastated European landscape. Players command a convoy through a continent where r...

Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventu...

Solo Flight is a classic 1985 flight simulation that puts the player in the cockpit of a small aircraft and focuses on the practical side of flying rather than cinematic dogfights....

Published in 1989, Le Fetiche Maya invites players into an adventure filled with ancient mysteries, hidden treasures, and dangerous locations inspired by Mesoamerican legends. Expl...

Q*Bert is a 1984 arcade classic that takes a small orange creature, places him on a pyramid of colorful cubes, and then makes the entire structure a surprisingly dangerous workplac...

In Blitzkrieg: Battle at the Ardennes, you’re not just playing a wargame — you’re being handed a clipboard, a stack of orders, and a freezing cold battlefield in ...

Cyrus is a chess program that doesn’t just play well—it plays with personality. The AI adjusts to your skill level, offering a challenge whether you’re a beginner...

Conqueror is what happens when a tank simulator and an arcade game go on a date and forget their purpose. You drive a tank in a pseudo-3D landscape, blow up stuff, and command squa...

Galaxy is a relic from the early days of PC gaming, when the idea of exploring space could be conveyed with a handful of pixels and a lot of imagination. The gameplay is simple, re...

Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh is a 1996 horror adventure that takes the series into a darker and more psychological direction. Instead of an old mansion, players explore a mode...

Sid Meier's Covert Action is a 1990 DOS espionage game that throws players into the glamorous world of international spying, where gathering information is only slightly less dange...

If you’ve ever dreamed of commanding a WWII convoy while cold, stressed, and staring at a pixelated radar screen, Action in the North Atlantic (1989, DOS) has you covered. It...

Wizball is a wonderfully strange arcade game built around a simple but unusual mission: restore color to a world that has apparently decided that monochrome is fashionable. You con...